Christmas gold, p.793
Christmas Gold, page 793
"What has become of the skipper, Tom," I asked, "and of the other officers?"
"I don't know," answered Tom; "they may be aboard the berg, and they mayn't. Anyway, I'm the only able seaman in her that I know of, so I've took the command."
The adventures of the last few hours had altered Tom White considerably for the better. From a grumbling sulking discontented fellow, he had been transformed into a smart active energetic commander. I verily believe he looked upon the iceberg as an actual ship, and so—barring masts, sails, and rudder—she was.
"Now, Mr. Monkhouse," continued Tom, "you'll please take your orders from me. I can see you're a sharp chap, by the way you've made them ice-shoes and cut them steps in the rock-face. Go up to the mast-head, and see what you can make of the other valleys. The next one to this, I know all about; that's my head-quarters."
"Ay, ay, sir," I replied, in true nautical style, and once more clambered the rocks. I invited Schlafenwohl to accompany me, but he declined. On reaching "the mast-head," as Tom styled it, I selected a valley to which the descent was sloping and easy, the sides being deeply covered with snow. Down the surface of this, I glided quite comfortably, and in a few seconds reached the bottom.
At first no human being was visible, but on turning an angle of the cliff, I beheld a singular sight.
Mrs. Robinson, the old lady, who on the previous evening had wished that the icebergs would all sink to the bottom in the night-time, and only come up by daylight, was seated crouching on the ground in a state of the utmost terror, holding a large green umbrella over her head. Close beside her, reposed an enormous walrus, at least twelve feet long, blinking sleepily at the frightened dame, and looking as little inclined for mischief as a domestic cat on a hearth-rug. Laying my finger on my lips to enjoin silence, I fastened a rope (which I had brought with me) round Mrs. Robinson's waist, and then proceeded to toil up the slope. I should never have reached the top with her dead weight behind me, but for the umbrella, which I used as an alpenstock. On gaining the summit, Mrs. Robinson vowed that she could never go down "them slippery steps," so, aided by Bill Atkins, to whom I made signals for assistance, we lowered her safely by a long cable into the women and children's valley.
"Mr. Monkhouse," said Bill, "we must have that walrus. Even if we can't eat his flesh, we can make a roaring bonfire of his blubber, and the poor women and children are perishing with cold."
"Ay, ay, sir."
So, up three or four of us climbed again, armed with knives and cask-staves. We reached the summit and descended into the valley safely. The walrus was seated as placidly as before. He seemed to be making a journey northward to visit some of his Falkland Island acquaintance, and to look upon the iceberg as an admirable species of public conveyance—cheap, swift, and comfortable. He was, however, apparently fonder of the society of ladies than of gentlemen. As soon as he saw us approach, flourishing our weapons, he turned over on his side and quietly rolled into the sea. Our party, chagrined at the cool manner in which he had given us the slip, returned slowly and disconsolately, communicating the result of our proceedings to Tom White.
"Never mind the walrus, boys," said that energetic commander, who was in high spirits. "She's going fifteen knots, if she's going an inch. Mr. Monkhouse," he continued, in a whisper, "you ain't seen the skipper?"
"No, there are no signs of him."
"Well, if he was aboard, I'd guarantee to bring him in safe. And he couldn't do better nor what I'm doing now."
What Tom White was doing to assist our progress, it would be hard to say; though he himself firmly believed that everything depended on his exertions.
Evening was coming on. "Mr. Monkhouse," said Tom, "you're the best hand I've got aboard the ship. How do you feel about the legs?"
"Rather stiff."
"Bill Atkins," said Tom, "serve out a tot of grog to Mr. Monkhouse. It's very precious liquor, for we've only one bottle aboard; but he deserves a drop."
I swallowed the proffered refreshment, when Tom said: "Now, I want you to go aloft again, to look out for land."
"Ay, ay, sir," I replied, cheerfully, and clambered up like a chamois.
"Land ho!" I called. My distance from Tom was upwards of three hundred feet; but ice must be an excellent conductor of sound, for I could hear Tom's answer quite distinctly, above the whistling of the wind, and the roaring of the waves.
"Where away?"
"On the weather bow, sir."
"All right. Stop aloft, and say what it looks like as we get nearer."
A furious gale was now blowing from sou'-sou'-west, and I was obliged to crouch on my hands and knees, to avoid being hurled into one of the chasms beneath. Our gallant iceberg churned through the dark water at railroad speed, leaving a long white track of foam, miles astern. My fear now was, that, at the rate we were going—which could be little short of twenty miles an hour—we should be dashed on the rocks. To my great joy, as we neared the land, I perceived an extensive opening in the cliffs. I described it as accurately as I could, to the watchful commander below. He presently came aloft, and stood at my side.
"Port Stephen's!" he exclaimed, "by all that's merciful! It lies in the sou'-west corner of the main island. Now comes the ticklish time. If we touch the rocks on either side, we shall be knocked to splinters."
The excitement on board the iceberg was intense. I will not attempt to describe it. Just as night fell, we entered the harbour. Had our gallant craft been steered by the most skilful helmsman in the British Navy she could not have kept a better course. Tom White rubbed his hands with delight, and appropriated all the honour and glory to himself. As soon as we were fairly inside the harbour, and under the shelter of the cliffs, the force of the wind abated. Fortunately, too, there was a strong current setting out of the harbour, right in the teeth of the wind. We hove the log, and found she was going five knots; we hove it again, a few minutes later, and she was barely making two knots; in a quarter of an hour from that time, a low grinding noise was heard, and we grounded on an extensive sand-bank in the centre of the harbour. We were obliged to remain there patiently during the night, as we had no means of communicating, by signal or otherwise, with the shore. We had matches, but the whole of our available fuel amounted to a deal board or two, and so small a fire would, probably, have attracted no observation. We passed a nervous miserable night, and the poor women and children especially. As the iceberg grated backwards and forwards on the top of the bank, we feared she was going to pieces: but her timbers (to speak metaphorically) were well put together, and she held out bravely until morning.
Never in my life did I feel so glad to see the day dawn. We were unspeakably delighted at about sunrise to observe several boats putting out from the settlement. The people in them had put off (it seemed when they came alongside) from motives of curiosity to visit the iceberg, but were perfectly astonished at finding her freighted with passengers.
The official in charge of the boats said, " We must observe some discipline in getting the people on board, or we shall have the boats swamped. Where is the captain?"
"I am the captain," quoth Tom White, boldly.
"Then, sir, perhaps you will have the kindness to arrange your people in detachments."
Tom bustled about with great pomp, looking fully two inches taller after having been called "Sir," and having been addressed so politely by the government officer.
By this time more boats had arrived from shore, and the scanty population of the port were to be seen running to and fro like ants whose nest had been disturbed.
"Are these all your crew and passengers, captain?" asked the governor of the island, as he stepped aboard the iceberg.
"Hall, your worship," answered Tom, apparently with some indistinct impressions of veneration, derived from the Thames Police Court; "the others," he continued solemnly, " has met a watery grave."
"Beg your pardon, sir," said a boatman, touching his cap to Tom White, "but there's a lot more people, t'other side the berg."
A rush of boats immediately gave way with a will to the spot indicated, and presently returned, bringing off the captain, chief mate, second mate, third mate, boatswain, doctor, steersman, and midshipmen. Being in the after-part of the ship when the catastrophe occurred, they had all leapt on board the iceberg together. And it seemed that we had searched six valleys, but had omitted to examine the seventh.
Poor Tom White! I believe he was a kind-hearted fellow, and well pleased to find that not a single life-had been sacrificed on board the Golden Dream; and yet I am sure he was sorry to see the captain again. He spoke not a word on his way to the shore, but hung down his head, and looked much depressed. In the evening, however, under the influence of a liberal libation of grog from His Excellency the Governor, he recovered his spirits, and described his manner of navigating the iceberg into port, in terms which I think no Falkland Islander will ever forget. As for the iceberg, I understand that she remained for many months grounded on the sand-bank; at length, under the influence of numerous storms of rain, the ceaseless dashing of the waters, and the warmth of the chilly southern summer, she crumbled to pieces, and disappeared.
We were all placed on board a Calfornian trader bound for New York. Here, I parted from Schlafenwohl, who had determined to settle in the United States. There was some slight coolness between us. I had positively declined to share the same cabin with him, on account of his snoring, and the worthy German was offended. Consequently, I proceeded to Liverpool by the Cunard steamer from Boston, alone. On reaching London, I at once forwarded a written statement of our extraordinary escape to the Committee at Lloyd's. It was authenticated by Tom White's mark; as he, like many other great men, was unable to read or write. A few days afterwards, I received a requisition to attend before the Committee of Lloyd's, which I at once obeyed, when the following conversation ensued between myself and the Chairman: "Pray, Mr. Monkhouse, is your family of German origin?"
"No, sir; we have been settled for centuries in East Kent."
"Oh, I beg your pardon; I thought the name of Monkhouse might have been a corruption of the name of a certain Baron, whose extraordinary adventures have long been known to the public."
Chapter VII.
His Brown-Paper Parcel
Table of Contents
Charles Dickens
My works are well known. I am a young man in the Art line. You have seen my works many a time, though it’s fifty thousand to one if you have seen me. You say you don’t want to see me? You say your interest is in my works, and not in me? Don’t be too sure about that. Stop a bit.
Let us have it down in black and white at the first go off, so that there may be no unpleasantness or wrangling afterwards. And this is looked over by a friend of mine, a ticket writer, that is up to literature. I am a young man in the Art line—in the Fine-Art line. You have seen my works over and over again, and you have been curious about me, and you think you have seen me. Now, as a safe rule, you never have seen me, and you never do see me, and you never will see me. I think that’s plainly put—and it’s what knocks me over.
If there’s a blighted public character going, I am the party.
It has been remarked by a certain (or an uncertain,) philosopher, that the world knows nothing of its greatest men. He might have put it plainer if he had thrown his eye in my direction. He might have put it, that while the world knows something of them that apparently go in and win, it knows nothing of them that really go in and don’t win. There it is again in another form—and that’s what knocks me over.
Not that it’s only myself that suffers from injustice, but that I am more alive to my own injuries than to any other man’s. Being, as I have mentioned, in the Fine-Art line, and not the Philanthropic line, I openly admit it. As to company in injury, I have company enough. Who are you passing every day at your Competitive Excruciations? The fortunate candidates whose heads and livers you have turned upside down for life? Not you. You are really passing the Crammers and Coaches. If your principle is right, why don’t you turn out to-morrow morning with the keys of your cities on velvet cushions, your musicians playing, and your flags flying, and read addresses to the Crammers and Coaches on your bended knees, beseeching them to come out and govern you? Then, again, as to your public business of all sorts, your Financial statements and your Budgets; the Public knows much, truly, about the real doers of all that! Your Nobles and Right Honourables are first-rate men? Yes, and so is a goose a first-rate bird. But I’ll tell you this about the goose;—you’ll find his natural flavour disappointing, without stuffing.
Perhaps I am soured by not being popular? But suppose I AM popular. Suppose my works never fail to attract. Suppose that, whether they are exhibited by natural light or by artificial, they invariably draw the public. Then no doubt they are preserved in some Collection? No, they are not; they are not preserved in any Collection. Copyright? No, nor yet copyright. Anyhow they must be somewhere? Wrong again, for they are often nowhere.
Says you, “At all events, you are in a moody state of mind, my friend.” My answer is, I have described myself as a public character with a blight upon him—which fully accounts for the curdling of the milk in that cocoa-nut.
Those that are acquainted with London are aware of a locality on the Surrey side of the river Thames, called the Obelisk, or, more generally, the Obstacle. Those that are not acquainted with London will also be aware of it, now that I have named it. My lodging is not far from that locality. I am a young man of that easy disposition, that I lie abed till it’s absolutely necessary to get up and earn something, and then I lie abed again till I have spent it.
It was on an occasion when I had had to turn to with a view to victuals, that I found myself walking along the Waterloo Road, one evening after dark, accompanied by an acquaintance and fellow-lodger in the gas-fitting way of life. He is very good company, having worked at the theatres, and, indeed, he has a theatrical turn himself, and wishes to be brought out in the character of Othello; but whether on account of his regular work always blacking his face and hands more or less, I cannot say.
“Tom,” he says, “what a mystery hangs over you!”
“Yes, Mr. Click”—the rest of the house generally give him his name, as being first, front, carpeted all over, his own furniture, and if not mahogany, an out-and-out imitation—“yes, Mr. Click, a mystery does hang over me.”
“Makes you low, you see, don’t it?” says he, eyeing me sideways.
“Why, yes, Mr. Click, there are circumstances connected with it that have,” I yielded to a sigh, “a lowering effect.”
“Gives you a touch of the misanthrope too, don’t it?” says he. “Well, I’ll tell you what. If I was you, I’d shake it of.”
“If I was you, I would, Mr. Click; but, if you was me, you wouldn’t.”
“Ah!” says he, “there’s something in that.”
When we had walked a little further, he took it up again by touching me on the chest.
“You see, Tom, it seems to me as if, in the words of the poet who wrote the domestic drama of The Stranger, you had a silent sorrow there.”
“I have, Mr. Click.”
“I hope, Tom,” lowering his voice in a friendly way, “it isn’t coining, or smashing?”
“No, Mr. Click. Don’t be uneasy.”
“Nor yet forg—” Mr. Click checked himself, and added, “counterfeiting anything, for instance?”
“No, Mr. Click. I am lawfully in the Art line—Fine-Art line—but I can say no more.”
“Ah! Under a species of star? A kind of malignant spell? A sort of a gloomy destiny? A cankerworm pegging away at your vitals in secret, as well as I make it out?” said Mr. Click, eyeing me with some admiration.
I told Mr. Click that was about it, if we came to particulars; and I thought he appeared rather proud of me.
Our conversation had brought us to a crowd of people, the greater part struggling for a front place from which to see something on the pavement, which proved to be various designs executed in coloured chalks on the pavement stones, lighted by two candles stuck in mud sconces. The subjects consisted of a fine fresh salmon’s head and shoulders, supposed to have been recently sent home from the fishmonger’s; a moonlight night at sea (in a circle); dead game; scroll-work; the head of a hoary hermit engaged in devout contemplation; the head of a pointer smoking a pipe; and a cherubim, his flesh creased as in infancy, going on a horizontal errand against the wind. All these subjects appeared to me to be exquisitely done.
On his knees on one side of this gallery, a shabby person of modest appearance who shivered dreadfully (though it wasn’t at all cold), was engaged in blowing the chalk-dust off the moon, toning the outline of the back of the hermit’s head with a bit of leather, and fattening the down-stroke of a letter or two in the writing. I have forgotten to mention that writing formed a part of the composition, and that it also—as it appeared to me—was exquisitely done. It ran as follows, in fine round characters: “An honest man is the noblest work of God. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0. £ s. d. Employment in an office is humbly requested. Honour the Queen. Hunger is a 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 sharp thorn. Chip chop, cherry chop, fol de rol de ri do. Astronomy and mathematics. I do this to support my family.”
Murmurs of admiration at the exceeding beauty of this performance went about among the crowd. The artist, having finished his touching (and having spoilt those places), took his seat on the pavement, with his knees crouched up very nigh his chin; and halfpence began to rattle in.
“A pity to see a man of that talent brought so low; ain’t it?” said one of the crowd to me.
“What he might have done in the coach-painting, or house-decorating!” said another man, who took up the first speaker because I did not.
“Why, he writes—alone—like the Lord Chancellor!” said another man.
“Better,” said another. “I know his writing. He couldn’t support his family this way.”
Then, a woman noticed the natural fluffiness of the hermit’s hair, and another woman, her friend, mentioned of the salmon’s gills that you could almost see him gasp. Then, an elderly country gentleman stepped forward and asked the modest man how he executed his work? And the modest man took some scraps of brown paper with colours in ’em out of his pockets, and showed them. Then a fair-complexioned donkey, with sandy hair and spectacles, asked if the hermit was a portrait? To which the modest man, casting a sorrowful glance upon it, replied that it was, to a certain extent, a recollection of his father. This caused a boy to yelp out, “Is the Pinter a smoking the pipe your mother?” who was immediately shoved out of view by a sympathetic carpenter with his basket of tools at his back.
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